Psy & Changelings 05 - Hostage to Pleasure

“Shoot!”
    And suddenly the tree was a war zone. Dorian moved swiftly up. They weren’t aiming high enough yet but sooner or later they’d figure it out. He put his body in front of Ashaya’s, intending to tell her that they’d need to move. There was a possibility he could jump them to another tree. But before he could get to that, he caught a familiar scent on the breeze. His leopard snarled, but the man grinned. “Damn wolves.”
    Ashaya made a questioning face. “Wolves?”
    “Wolves.” Knowing backup was on the way, he leaped back down to a lower branch and began to pick off the attackers once more. They were close to getting a fix on him when the first scream sounded. He hoped to hell Ashaya had Keenan’s ears blocked, because the wolves were being noisy about their work. Then the cats arrived.
    In spite of the fact that the fight was now over, Dorian didn’t lower his guard. It was a good thing he didn’t. One of the human hunters had evaded everyone. Dorian caught the man’s scent from his left, and realized he’d climbed over from a neighboring tree. Not wanting to chance a shot going haywire, he stalked the man with quiet leopard focus. A whisper of air was the last thing the man heard as Dorian snapped his neck. The body crashed through the branches and to the ground.
    A few minutes later, a whistle rang out. “All clear, Boy Genius.”
    “Ice-fucking-cold water,” he muttered. “I’ve got Keenan up here.”
    “Give us a couple of minutes.”
    When he climbed up to Ashaya, she said, “Is Boy Genius another nickname?”
    “No. It’s a way to get my temper going.”
    Her lips curved slightly, despite the white-knuckled grip she had on Keenan. The kid gave him a pleading look. Dorian kissed Shaya and reached for him. “We’re safe. Give the K-Man to me.”
    Keenan came without hesitation. “I want a big gun like yours.”
    Trying not to smile, Dorian dropped an absent kiss on Keenan’s hair. “Did he . . . ?”
    “No. I shielded him.” She looked down, eyes worried. “Will there be anything down there . . . to see?”
    “They’re tidying up.” The bodies would be hidden away, the blood covered up, by the time he came down with Keenan. Since the boy didn’t have changeling senses, he wouldn’t smell the carnage.
    Ashaya touched his cheek. “You protected us.”
    He wondered how she’d known to say exactly what he needed to hear. “It was my own stupid—”
    “Shh.” A feminine finger on his lips. “If it was your fault, it was mine as well. No ifs, no buts. You did good.”
    Strangely, that simple sentence did more to soothe him than a thousand flowery words. “Come on, beautiful. Let’s go home.”
     
But it took a while for that to happen. After stashing Ashaya and Keenan in the Tank, the large vehicle Clay had driven to the location, he left them under Rina and Barker’s careful eyes, and returned to the scene of the kills.
    The instant he saw the wolves, he realized the reason for the amount of noise—the boys weren’t juveniles, but only by a year or two. “Tai, what were you doing down here?”
    Tai looked a little green as he shrugged. “Kit, Cory, and the others pulled a stunt in our territory, so we were, you know, paying them back.”
    Dorian wondered what the DarkRiver boys had done. “Do I need to talk to them?”
    “Nah.” He shook his head, swallowing as a wave of scent rose up in the shifting air currents. “We were just playing stupid games. Kid games.”
    “You didn’t act like a kid today. Thank you.” Dorian held out his hand.
    Tai gave him a shaky smile as their hands met. “We’ve never killed. Not people.”
    Dorian glanced at Clay. “You called Hawke?”
    “He’s on his way.”
    Knowing the wolf alpha would take care of the boys, he told Tai and his friends to grab a seat on the forest floor a good distance away from the carnage. They obeyed without argument, leaving Dorian to walk over to the bodies. “Any ID?” he asked, crouching down beside Clay.
    “No. But we found this.” The other sentinel pulled up the pant leg on one body, revealing the back of the shooter’s calf. The tattoo was simple. The letter A bordered by two straight lines. Except Dorian knew that that wasn’t what it was. It was an A overlying an H .
    “Human Alliance.” He’d guessed as much, but it was good to have proof. “The others?”
    “Yeah, ones with their legs undamaged.” Clay’s tone was predator-quiet as he said, “Two of them